RRecently, I got Citroen C3 Turbo at my house in CR Park, Delhi. and when i had reviewed Driving a vehicle in the natural habitat of the car the French carmaker launched in Goa – an urban megapolis – is the best way to evaluate what it’s like to live with it. So, it was a fun car to drive whenever you found an empty stretch of road to give the turbocharger a workout, which is almost impossible during the day in Delhi-NCR. Combined with the fact that the C3 lacks an automatic transmission, which is increasingly a necessity in places like NCR, it wasn’t always pleasant.
But the lack of C3 isn’t just an automatic thing. The fact that there’s no electrically adjustable exterior mirror or prismatic night setting on the inside rear-view mirror is extremely troubling. Sure, the car comes with a beautiful high-definition screen for the infotainment system, but strangely it lacks a reverse camera as a standard fitment. Citroen says you can get it as an option, but it is now mandatory for car makers to have reverse parking sensors on all cars. Even the top model of Maruti Suzuki Alto has a reverse camera as standard.
And as useful as reverse sensors are, nothing is better than a reverse camera. I know there are warnings on all cars about not relying only on the camera, but, usually, when I reverse a car, I notice the reverse camera display on the infotainment screen. It’s certainly a lot less physically difficult than turning your torso and turning your head over your shoulder. This, along with the reverse sensor, whose beeps you’re used to, which includes a loud sound just before you hit something, bugged me.
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Comfort features make you lazy
To be honest, it was not like this before. I learned to drive in the mid-1990s on a Maruti van – as the Omni was called back then – and it didn’t even have an air conditioner. Today, driving aids and creature comforts have become widespread. I remember the first time I experienced power windows on a Mercedes owned by a friend’s father, and it felt like magic. Even when my father acquired his first car with power windows—the Maruti Esteem VX in 1996—that singular feature struck an agape.
My first car, a Maruti-Suzuki alto, which I bought in 2002, had no power windows. It had power steering and an air conditioner but no reverse sensor. Nor did the Hyundai i20 come in 2009. But in the early 2010s, reverse sensors and cameras began to filter onto mass-market cars from the luxury segment. And as someone who changes cars very often, it changed how I drive or at least, reverse. To be honest, it made me lazy.
I was the kind of person who could reverse in the narrow and twisty lanes of CR Park, often two hundred meters down an entire street and did so using mirrors. But a few years back, when Maruti Suzuki invited me to test out the computerized driving center at Delhi’s Sarai Kale Khan Regional Transport Office (RTO), they bumped me into an old WagonR and hit me with one ‘S without touching me. ‘ The turn had to be reversed. sidewalk. No sensor, and no camera, but it had all three mirrors. And I failed the first time. Of course, failure is not an option, when it comes to something through which I earn my daily bread, I went again. and passed.
But that experience taught me something – how lazy I had become and, I admitted, so many other people might have. Check out another basic driving habit we were once taught: don’t brake when turning. The inside wheel can pop off and you can easily get into a spin. However, today, cars have anti-lock braking systems (ABS), and while you can still lock, you’ll have to work hard to do it. Most of the time nowadays in any modern car you can apply the brakes while turning and the vehicle will not complain even if it vibrates.
Forget automatic transmissions – which are becoming very common, and well – you also have automatic headlights and wipers. The latter still freaks me out, but now, with the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), the brakes will be applied automatically if the car senses a potential collision. And the brakes are so stiff that you feel like you’ve actually got a bump.
Sure, some creature comforts are good, useful too. Hyundai and Kia cars are coming with automatic air purifiers with PM2.5 display, which is a very useful feature in North India these days. However, many of these features, such as the multicolored LED cabin lights, are gimmicky while still luxurious. But you get used to them, just like you have with power windows. I’m sure if you showed a wind-up window to a teenager accustomed to modern cars, they would be shocked.
And it’s the same with reverse cameras – you get so used to them that you notice the car doesn’t have them. And as a car appraiser, you ask one simple question: Why? Not that the camera sensors are expensive, and it was the top-end C3 Turbo that costs Rs 8.5 lakh (ex-showroom). Even a smartphone under Rs 8,000 has multiple cameras. Sure, the car drives well, but often, it’s just the singularity that turns you away from a product or anything for that matter. And, by the tone of this column, you might have guessed by now, that the lack of a reverse camera, and the broken smartphone USB connector review didn’t come with the car, did it for me.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Likes)